Thrusters spat blue fmes at Iron Lord’s back, sending him into a spin faster than an eye could follow. The cameras in his arms caught the tear iy; his hands closed on Brood Lord’s neck, and he smmed the bastard into the wall with enough force to dent it. Drozna took a step, and the repulsion field smmed into his ugly mug, shoving him bad f the worthless minion to wipe tears from his eyes. With a g sound, turrets unfolded from the ceiling; industrial saws, three rotating bdes the size of a ft, moved up from the recyg area, ready to assist their master in his hour of need.

  The shoulder on spun, firing at the portal, and Phaser screamed in pain from the other side, hastily closing it. Brood Lord’s legs whipped, pushing the metal on Iron Lord’s wrist, but he refused to yield, activating the thrusters on his legs, and drove himself and the fool back a little from the wall, then rammed him again, drawing a groan from the freak.

  “I’ve had enough of you!” Iron Lord punched Brood Lord; the hydrauli his limbs sped up the fist to bullet speed, bleeding the lips. He g the tense Drozna. “Step up to me and be dismembered.” He hoped the degee would ighe threat to settle things, but his rival raised a hand, stopped his pdog, and smiled ily.

  “So sensitive,” Brood Lord chuckled. “It was a harmless joke to test if you still had the ce to stand equal to me.”

  “Try me again, and it’ll be your st,” promised Iron Lord, cursing at the reports of artillery aimed at his train. Remove the rival and break the promise to the Merts. This scum wao see him back down. “In war, we go as a united front. My hands are busy coordinating this quest. I have no time to babysit you. One more prank and I will chop your head off; sequences be damned. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal, Iron Lord Khan.” Brood Lord bowed his head, not oopping smirking.

  Iron Lord choked harder, desiring to smash in this smiling face, to hear the bones crag, teeth pulverizing, and eyeballs bursting. Brood Lord start, a mutated Malformed who had murdered arayed his way to the top, where he had wisely submitted to the Khatun, pretending to be useful as he built his little empire. Eyeing Iron Lord’s position and nds, he plotted to persuade lesser khans to join him, spendih aing his limits. As, the little sadist had his uses.

  “Father…” A voice groaned from behind the s, and Iron Lord dropped the trash, turning to the frame.

  It moved! Mehmed lived as nothing more than a brain, trolling the vulsial fingers with nothing but his thoughts! Legs moved, trying to stand up, restricted by the tendrils as the frame was still being assembled. The chest hatch opened and closed like the jaws of a ered, desperate animal. The four arms moved, g at the tors to reach for the brain tainer, stopping short, not daring to pry the fibers away.

  The frame shook, swaying in the harness, trying to break free. Brood Lord pressed a fio his lips as the noise came from Mehmed’s dynamics. Iron Lord frowned inside his armor, startled by the strange sounds. The stable e between brain and mae should transte an attempt to speak into synthesized speech, just as a biological body would for an ordinary human.

  Was there a malfun of some sort? He ran the diagnostid found no fault. Perhaps an iion? Impossible. By perf the operation and saving hundreds of bondsmen’s lives, he had produced practical proof that the programming of his medical-surgical automatons to the task. Why did Mehmed sound like he was about to swallow something?

  “Mehmed? Son, how are you? you fun?” Iron Lord asked, adding reassurand fiden his voice.

  “I…” Mehmed forced out a word. “I… I…”

  “Shit,” said Brood Lord, no longer smiling.

  “Yes, you,” Iron Lreed eagerly. “Don’t be afraid; don’t worry; you’re alive; there will be no pain anymore. It’s over; you are saved…”

  “Breathe…”

  “What?”

  “I ’t breathe!” Mehmed wailed, his syic voice eg off the walls as his firied to tear holes ial neck. “I ’t swallow, my lips… Body, body, body! Father, why ’t I feel anything?!” The frame broke free of the harness and stood up on two arms, legs dangling helplessly on the floor. “Anything, please, oh Sky, please let me feel something. Just a taste, a touch… Pain, warmth, cold, drool on my lips, anything, something…” His dynamics tio spill pointless pleas. “AM I ALIVE?!”

  “You are alive,” Iron Lord tried to reason with his son. “It is unusual, perhaps, but to save you…”

  Walking on his metal knuckles, Mehmed approached the medical sb, his inactive legs scraping against the floor. Disected wires spat electrical sparks. Mehmed grabbed his former body with his upper arms and lifted it into the air, screaming as his three-fingered hand vulsed, shattering the empty skull and spshing some bone and blood against his armored corpus. Another hand crushed the leg, snapping it like a straw. Mehmed raised the body above his head, dripping blood into the open hatch.

  “Flesh…” He said longingly and screamed again. “It’s me, right?! Why ’t I feel anything?! Father, father, I ’t feel a thing!”

  “You have been reborn, Mehmed.” Iron Lord attempted to calm him. “Everything is fine. You are beautiful, a perfe inate. In time, you will e to appreciate the might of your new form…”

  “Let me die!” Mehmed dropped his body and smmed his fists against the s, crag it. His synthesized voice broke over and over, trying to transte his emotions into words. “I beg you! Just end this!”

  “And here is the reason,” Brood Lord chuckled and bowed mogly. “My deepest sympathies, Iron Lord. The boy went mad. Do me a solid if I ever end up like him, just off me, will you? I mean, we have our differences and all, but surely…”

  “Useless,” Iron Lord spat, h a finger over the self-destruct button. None of his children ever dared to interrupt him; he drilled that lesson into them with mother’s milk. Theopped. Why should he waste a perfectly good suit of armor? “Mehmed. Do you remember the one who ruined you?”

  “Yes!” Mehmed bellowed. “She took my arm! She took my flesh! And her mutated, misbegotten kin bathed me in acid!”

  “They are the reason you are now locked in a steel coffin. Will you let them be?” Iron Lord tinued, and Mehmed stopped filing; the lenses on his head focused on his father. “Mehmed, my boy. The Sky has given you a ce for retribution. By its will, you have been reborn, stronger, better, and faster than ever before. With this body, you end their entire bloodline and be reborn in the Sky’s embrace! Will you refuse this gift?”

  “N-nooooo,” Mehmed stretched out the word, breaking into a sob and trying to cover his ‘face’ with his arms. Iron Lord was disgusted by this sight of weakness. But he tio stare at his son, burning him into his memory and warning him of the dahat y in cyberization. “No one else shall bee like me.”

  “E through yht. Brood Lord Khan will provide targets once your body is adapted. I’m sorry it ehat way.” Iron Lord said his st soft words and cut the audio feed and trol away from Mehmed, trapping his boy in darkness as his frame was returned for assembly. “He is all yours,” he told Brood Lord, dropping him a remote trol. “Toss him into a trash bin or pit him against the sve; I don’t care. I don’t want to hear his name ever again.”

  “Didn’t ask, but sure, I’ll take it. Where are you going?” Brood Lord asked.

  “To the front lines. Some of us have a war to prosecute.”

  Iron Lord left the partment, fnked by his personal guard. What did he learn? First, the procedure was safe enough. Sed, the subject may go mad. Will he be affected? Iron Lord still had funing reproductive ans and a funing body, though augmetics had repced several ans. He loved his wives and ehe precious days they spent together. Whether it was cooking, g for their useless children, or making new ones, it was difficult to give up those sensations altogether. His loved ones never judged him for not being a pureblood; to them, he was a man, a Mert, not an Iron Lord Khan. Will this attat scar his psyche enough during transfereo a ate of existence? He could not sever his ties with his wives, no more than he could have killed himself. They were a part, the most important part of his life.

  More tests were needed. He had the braia from his son’s failed operation; he had the hard data on how to preserve the brain perfectly. After the quest, it shouldn’t be problematic to procure enough willing sves from any flesh market in exge for freedom for their families. Then he will cut away limbs and ans from his voluntary test subjects, repg them with augmentations to learn the exact limits of how a mind must be adjusted to asd into a perfeion of steel and flesh.

  Horkhudagh joined him on the ramp leading outside. The fiery khan had taken on the appearance of a burned victim. His skin erfect bck bark, crag with every movement and spilling motes of dark ash everywhere. Hellish fmes danced in the open cracks, lig the bark before it closed. The khan’s lips curled into a white-toothed smile, and his fiouched the temple iing.

  “I take it Mehmed didn’t make it?” Horkhudagh asked, handing Patieo Iron Lord. “My dolences.” He bowed to the personal guard, and they returhe gesture.

  “Beat it. He should have heeded my warnings. What is the situation?” Patience wasn’t overheated. The weird man trolled the temperature of his body and his surroundings to a frightening effect.

  “Muroops bolstered our side, and warrirumbled, a missing the raping of the town…” Iron Lord tapped the ramp with his give, stopping the pointless chatter of self-evident information. His sweetheart refused to bee a khatun, preferring to stay and raise their adorable daughters and sturdy sons, but one of her brothers was not incible and uood the value of cooperation. “Brood Lord’s forces are swelling with the parasites arriving from beyond the wall and the rabble he has found here.”

  “Expected.” Iron Lord faced Horkhudagh. “What nds do you desire?”

  “A forest,” the burning man answered instantly. “There was a legend ba my . Of a mysterious, bro standing deep in the dark forest. A hag lived there, advid training to the future heroes, but those who failed to impress her never returned from an inferno unleashed by a snap of her fingers.” He smiled, and the ers of his lips cracked. “There was no forest near my home. But I always wao live the legend.”

  “Really?” Iron Lord was surprised. “No rich mines, iful wives… Just forest?”

  “Khan, there are less than two thousand men in my khaganate; what use are mio us? Should we spend our years fighting to keep them?” Horkhudagh asked. “Forests mean an abundance of game and water, a perfect py to grow.” He g the guard, and Iron Lord surrouhem with a force field, preventing any words from getting out. “And what woman would survive the thrust of my spear, eh?”

  “Then your sons and daughters…”

  “Adopted,” Horkhudagh scratched his head, unleashing a pilr of liquid fme that solidified in more bck bark. “Love them to death, the little squeakers, but my three wives knew what would happen if we tried to have legitimate ones. We chose a few kids blessed with fire talents and added them to the wives’ children. And so I have heirs and an illusion of credibility. Surprised?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be a virgin,” admitted Iron Lord. “If there is anything else you wish for your serviame it.”

  “Recimers turail and ran.” Horkhudagh shrugged a a cloak of fme envelop him. “Frankly, I expected more. Wanted more.”

  “Fear not; the time will e when the Fme Whip of the Sky will grace the field with his presence.”

  Horkhudagh nodded, satisfied that his hint had been uood. He ed his ned said: “There is also another matter. I had a thought of solving it myself, but…” he poi the khan. “I have a master now. Your servants are causing a ruckus.”

  Iron Lord listeo the news, her exploding in anger nor approving. It was merely another situation for him to resolve, and he marched to the edge of the sprawling war camp, he makeshift barracks that Svetaker had occupied and verted to hold the prisoners. From a distahey could hear angry shouting, threatening cries, and then a desperate shriek preceded by a whipping strike of a sword ing from a smaller camp he fresh market. The shouting intensified, and Iron Lord heard rifles being cocked.

  Pre-industrial tents and ritual ceremonies juxtaposed the advanced field hospital and mobile workshops. The Gilded Horde was a nation of trasts. Several Purebloods sipped zily from dirty mugs, the bondsmen ing their advanced power armors in the mud. Half a kilometer away, engineers id new minefields, and patrols rode to the horizon, ready to repel any ued terattack. Dirtybloods danced on cheap wooden tables, singing national songs in the shadow of hastily installed radar systems. Partially naked men and womeed their skills, smming oppos to the ground to the cheers of the crowd. Doctors interrupted priests’ ceremo away the wounded.

  The Khatun and Iron Lord’s iors visited individual war camps. Some were shielded by deceptively fragile wooden palisades, inviting challeo test their khans, while stone walls bristling with artillery encircled others. The iors ventured in unopposed, buying off the ensved doctors, engineers, and simirly valuable personnel, along with their families. After a period of loyalty training, these sves were given their freedom and helped maintain the Horde’s effiomads and city dwellers blended into one.

  There were no visible tensioween the Purebloods and mutants. Even the abominable Malformed were ignored. It had less to do with tolerance; racism was very much present in the Gilded Horde. If a child was born a mutant, his parents would often discard the brat. But as long as the mutant was strong and useful, no one cared, and they often reached a khan’s rank.

  This camp beloo Skull Lord Khan, another rising upstart who cimed his share of glory after the untimely death of Sky Lord Khan. Though the Khatun had saved Sky Lord’s khaganate, Skull Lord had wedged himself in the dispute between Brood Lord and Iron Lord, skillfully exploiting the strife to secure the allegiance of several s and build up his forces to bee a threat. He sat on his thunder bull, wielding a shield and the electric cw he had taken from the dead Sword Saint, his beady eyes watg the se at the ter of his camp from behind a metal mask that had been welded into his own bones. Skin grew over the thing, dist the man’s fato an ugly, intimidating scowl.

  Svetaker stood unmoved, his hands on the shoulders of the cause of the chaos, a pale and frightened young woman dressed in rags. The sve trader, known for his unhinged cruelty, was almost gently sharing some of his fideh the girl. Widowmaker was nearby, ing her sword of the guts of a dead Pureblood. She o Iron Lord.

  “No one cheats Svetaker,” the sve trader said.

  “I will be the oo decide the limits of my troops,” Skull Lord whispered hoarsely, his gauwitched when Iron Lord stopped, examining him as if he were a curious i.

  “Is that the meat?” Svetaker kindly asked the woman, who barely reached his waist. He the nervous Dirtyblood near Skull Lord. “Who dared to spoil my goods?” He waited patiently as the woman swalloain-filled cry and hid her fa her palms. “You have nothing to fear. Is that him?”

  “”Svetaker, we are adults; I am sure we e to a beneficial arra. e on, man, you ’t trust her over me; I paid, dammit!" shouted the Dirtyblood, but the trader paid him no attention, and the man turo Widowmaker. “Don’t you hate that bastard?”

  “Yep,” the freed sve answered.

  “Join me, and we cut off his legs and leave him crawling in the dirt, bleeding and g as he dies!”

  “’t.” Widowmaker ran a finger over the edge of her sword. “Hate scum like you worse.”

  “Yes,” the woman said finally, and Svetaker patted her on the back.

  “You and your family are free as of now,” he told her.

  The Dirtyblood began apologizing, the pensation, and trembled as Svetaker raised his head and gred at him with the unhinged ferocity of a rabid dog. The ground shook with the thud of the run, and Dirtyblood and his rades feverishly tried to reach for their ons. Widowmaker was around them, ahead of her hated partner; her sword sang, opening people from belly button to throat, and she ughed as she collected her tally. Svetaker was on the culprit in an instant, burying his cleaver in the man’s shoulder to the hilt.

  Hands gripped the sweat-covered head, fingers peed the skin, and in a siion the Dirtyblood’s face was hanging i hands as he rolled on the floor, howling in pain. The leg lifted and trampled him into oblivion.

  “The payment is acceptable,” Svetaker said, pushing his trophy into his belt pouch. “Let this be a lesson to your khaganate if you are unwilling to teach them yourself.”

  Skull Lord’s cws drummed against his armor-pted knee, rage boiling in his eyes. Iron Lord waited patiently, ready for any oute. They were outnumbered a huo one in the middle of a rival camp. But with Horkhudagh at his side, victory was far from certain. Besides, there was a way to turn the unruliness of his servants into a profitable endeavor by showing the arrogant khan his pce.

  “This isn’t over,” Skull Lord promised.

  “Agreed. You still have duties to perfo forth, brave warrior.” Iron Lord lenses focused at the enraged eyes. “These are fn nds. Do not repeat the mistake of Mungke Khan.”

  “I have no need in your lessons, Iron Lord.” The khan raised his gau, summoning his army to war.

  “The boy won’t fet this anytime soon,” Horkhudagh said as the hordemehe camp and headed northeast.

  “More woe to him, then. Our warriors are o, medie, food, and water are regurly checked, and our patrols are ready. Send your me’s see how many warriors and s we take from him now that they know he will not protect them.” Iron Lord turo his servants, spreading his arms. “Be prepared. Things will ge after the war. A transformation awaits the Gilded Horde. Old ways will die out.”

  “It sounds like you want to civilize us. Make us more like the Merts,” Svetaker remarked, handing his cleaver to a soldier for ing. His eyes watched the Iron Lord calmly as the wind ruffled his cloak of fyed skin.

  “Would that be so bad?” Iron Lord inquired. “To not have to worry about a possible raid, to have a nation that stretches from one dry sea to ao have our standards proudly raised above every city. No vassals, no failed s, s forced to pete for scraps.” There was not a hint of anger iaker’s tranquil face. “No sves,” he addressed Widowmaker. “Only the Gilded Horde, proud and evolved, fed, tent, powerful, with us to lead it as we see fit. Are you worried that you will not find a pce for yourself in the world?”

  Widowmaker ughed and sheathed her on, while Svetaker rolled his eyes and said, “ted once. We do it again.”

  “Iron Lord Khan, I have sworn to serve you, but I will not try to take on the Khatun,” stated Horkhudagh. “You treat us well, but there is a liween loyalty and wanton suicide.”

  “I tread this line carefully.” Iron Lord nodded amiably. “The Khatun have little desire to rule. Once her goal is achieved, those who remain will shape the future.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but there is still Dantai. The fanatic is a bitch to tain and ’t be killed,” Widowmaker cautioned.

  “Anyone die,” Iron Lord assured her. “It is why we must guard our Khatun. She is the guarantee of lorious future.”

  Cheers from the looming building to the south of the town distracted him. Mad Hatter was already departed, roaming the nd in search of a worthy oppo, or perhaps simply for her own amusement. In her former pace, Brood Lord’s warriors were gathering wooden pnks and hauling in the famous golden bull, preparing for the night’s feast and eager for attras. Sves were bought to please the women and men of the Horde, and Iron Lord tightened his grip on Patience, well aware of the kind of fun these degees preferred.

  He had killed tless people in his lifetime, often using cruel and dht gruesome punishments, either to uphold tradition or to instill fear and deprive his new subjects of hope. But his every act was for a higher purpose, to achieve his ambitions, and never for pleasure. He wasn’t… like them.

  “Waste of fi,” Svetaker said, expressing what they all felt.

  “Should we stop it?” Widowmaker asked. “I don’t enjoy the prospect of fighting alongside the dog, but we all know the bout is iable. Why put it off until ter?”

  “Degees, junkies, and thieves are useless for the army,” Horkhudagh supported her. “Ureated, rot tends to spread and poison the rest of the body. Not to infringe on the wisdom of lorious khan, but I wouldn’t mind a roasted side of Brood Lord for dinner. Just nod, and I’ll serve it.”

  “Ighem,” Iron Lord anded, hoisting the give to his shoulder. “We have a nation to quer.”